Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
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conflict, and
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uncertainty - doubt as to which course of action
should be adopted.
Consequently, governance has to be a process
that addresses the particular nature of the con-
flicts, including the conflicts of interest, that
make the particular choice necessary and seeks
to create confidence that one option should be
adopted. It has to resolve those conflicts and it
needs to do so in a way that both addresses societal
objectives and increases the likelihood that future
conflicts will be resolved successfully. It cannot
afford to address any single conflict in a way that
makes the resolution of future conflicts more
difficult and reduces the likelihood of future co-
operation or collaboration. The most challenging
of those conflicts are those between the different
interests of the different groupsmaking up society,
and between the different societal objectives
brought to the choice.
interest. Conversely, in much of continental Eur-
ope, the aim is social solidarity, whilst in China
and some parts of Africa, great emphasis is placed
upon social harmony (Consedine 1999). As might
be expected, those cultural differences are ex-
pressed in the prevailing systems of rules in those
countries, notably in their legal frameworks. A
functional question arises: is any one of these
systems more effective at delivering all aspects of
sustainable development?
Technology
A continuing question is whether invention is
exogenous to culture or society, or whether it is
endogenous. That is, whether invention is an
almost random consequence of curiosity or
whether the area of invention is chosen. What
is clearer is that the adoption of invention,
innovation, and the likelihood of the successful
and rapid adoption of that innovation depends
upon the culture and the governance. This was
the argument for non-structural (White 1964)
flood risk management interventions, the expec-
tation that traditional engineering bureaucracies
would not adopt technologies that neither fitted
in with their view of the world and their mis-
sion, nor were consistent with engineering prac-
tices. Equally, environmental groups such as
WWF are almost compelled to insist on such
intervention strategies as wetlands (WWF
Scotland 2007) even when the evidence for their
effectiveness is limited (O'Connell et al. 2007).
Thus, governance and technology are reflective
of each other.
Governance and Technology
Social relations are central to the 'how' question:
what is the best organizational means of bringing
the resources together? There are five possible
ways of bringing the resources together:
.
Individual:
the individual household or organi-
zation is able to mobilize sufficient resources on
its own.
.
Competitive:
where the individual household
or organization is unable to take action itself, it
buys in that capacity from others.
.
Cooperative:
where individuals or groups work
together to achieve a single common goal in the
short term.
.
Collaborative:
where individuals or groups
work together to take actions to achievewhat they
believe in the long run will be beneficial to all.
.
Coordination by hierarchy:
Choice
Governance has to address the reasons that make
choices necessary. For a choice to exist, there have
to be at least two mutually exclusive options, at
least one reason to prefer one option to all others,
and at least one other reason to prefer one of the
alternatives (Green 2003). If all can agree that
one option should be preferred to all others then
the choice has been made. Hence, the two neces-
sary conditions for the existence of a choice are:
the
'king-who-
commands' model.
If individuals lack the specific powers, such as
skill or physical resources, to undertake action on
their own, then if they have other power, notably
money, they may be able to buy in those resources
or capacity from a competitive market. A
